Learning the vi and Vim Editors, 7th Edition

Book Description

There's nothing that hard-core Unix and Linux users are morefanatical about than their text editor. Editors are the subject ofadoration and worship, or of scorn and ridicule, depending uponwhether the topic of discussion is your editor or someoneelse's.vi has been the standard editor for close to 30 years.Popular on Unix and Linux, it has a growing following on Windowssystems, too. Most experienced system administrators citevi as their tool of choice. And since 1986, this book hasbeen the guide for vi.However, Unix systems are not what they were 30 years ago, andneither is this book. While retaining all the valuable features ofprevious editions, the 7th edition of Learning the vi and vimEditors has been expanded to include detailed information onvim, the leading vi clone. vim is thedefault version of vi on most Linux systems and on Mac OSX, and is available for many other operating systems too.With this guide, you learn text editing basics and advanced toolsfor both editors, such as multi-window editing, how to write bothinteractive macros and scripts to extend the editor, and powertools for programmers -- all in the easy-to-follow style that hasmade this book a classic.Learning the vi and vim Editors includes:A complete introduction to text editing with vi:

How to move around vi in a hurry

Beyond the basics, such as using buffers

vi's global search and replacement

Advanced editing, including customizing vi andexecuting Unix commands

How to make full use of vim:

Extended text objects and more powerful regularexpressions

Multi-window editing and powerful vim scripts

How to make full use of the GUI version of vim, calledgvim

vim's enhancements for programmers, such as syntaxhighlighting, folding and extended tags

Coverage of three other popular vi clones -- nvi,elvis, and vile -- is also included. You'll findseveral valuable appendixes, including an alphabetical quickreference to both vi and ex mode commands forregular vi and for vim, plus an updated appendixon vi and the Internet.Learning either vi or vim is required knowledgeif you use Linux or Unix, and in either case, reading this book isessential. After reading this book, the choice of editor will beobvious for you too.